“I can’t say the same thing for what happened to me though."
Shannon Noll has broken his silence on the dispute he had outside an Adelaide strip club with a security guard earlier this year that resulted in his arrest.
Noll was hit with an assault charge that was dropped last month and in an interview with News Corp, the 41-year-old singer claimed he never attacked a bouncer outside the Crazy Horse venue.
Instead, Noll claimed that the dispute began with the manager after asking for unused money he put down on his card to be refunded.
"I wasn't kicked out," the 2003 Australian Idol runner-up explained.
"The manager wanted to talk to me out the front, no worries. We were talking. I got exasperated because I was dirty as we had spent enough money at that point.
"I put some on the card and asked for it back and probably had no right to do that.
"I didn't assault anyone, I didn't punch anyone, I didn't push anyone. I did get up in their grill.
"I can't say the same thing for what happened to me though.
"The police took me straight to hospital.
"An allegation was made that I assaulted someone so they come and arrest me and that's it.
"I recovered pretty quick, they were mostly abrasions and an egg on my temple but I had a fair bit of blood running out of me.
"I got a fingernail through my tattoo on my arm, took colour out of it, they went through three layers of skin."
Noll said the entire incident served as a "wake-up call" and that moving forward he will likely keep his post-gig celebrations low-key.
"After a gig, you might feel like going out and having a beer but the rule of thumb now will be if I'm going to have a couple of beers, I'll have them in the hotel room," he said.
"It's a bit of a lonely existence in that way but it's being professional and that's the approach I will take. No more celebrating a good gig."
Noll kicks off a string of headline shows in Sydney tomorrow night — click on theGuide for more details.